Enterprise & Employability

We believe that enterprise and employment are the best routes out of poverty for young people, helping them positively transform their own and others’ lives.

How we work

We help young people in some of the poorest and most fragile parts of the world to develop the skills they need to earn a decent living and participate fully in their communities.

Our Global Challenge

We live in a world where poverty and inequality persist.

Around 500 million young people globally, survive on less than £1.50 a day. Poverty affects every aspect of their lives, with many suffering from poor access to education and training, and experiencing discrimination because of age, gender or sexual orientation.

Without the right skills and training, many cannot enter the labour market or are trapped in low-paid, insecure work. Each year there are 600 million young people entering the job market yet there are only around 200 million vacant jobs globally. Young people are often overlooked and excluded from decision-making and end up exposed to crime, failed by justice systems that routinely jail them for excessive periods and fail to rehabilitate them.

Partnership-led and Community Focused

We work with local organisations to design programmes that tackle these problems, using enterprise and employability to effect sustainable change.

Our programmes are focused, first and foremost, on training young people so that they have the necessary skills needed to earn a proper living. These include not just job-related technical, business skills but also transferable life skills such as communication and relationship skills.

We know that young people also need to be able to access certain resources to enable them to thrive long-term. This is why we make sure that those we work with can access the assets needed to start and run their own business – such as equipment and finance – and are connected to the right support networks.